Create a backup job

A job is one source, one destination and a schedule. The wizard (Jobs → New Job) has six steps; which options appear depends on what you are backing up, and this page says which is which so you are never hunting for a switch that is not there for your kind of job.

Step 1 — Basics: what and where it runs #

The five kinds of source #

The source kind and where it runs cannot be changed after the job is created — duplicate the job instead (Jobs → ⋮ → Duplicate).

Customer. When you can see more than one customer, choose whose job this is. For a job on a machine the customer is implied by the machine; for a Cloud Agent job it must be stated, or the job lands under your own tenant with your own allowance.

Backup or Restore. Restore is only offered for Files; see Restore data.

Step 2 — Source #

Files #

Choose the agent, then add source paths — absolute paths on that machine (C:\Data, D:\Shares\Accounts, /srv/files). The folder picker browses the machine live through its agent. Backup mode: Incremental uploads only files that changed since the last run (by size and modified time, then by content hash when the destination reports one); Full uploads everything every time.

Cloud Storage #

Choose the source storage target and, if it runs on your agent, the relay agent (objects are staged on that machine between the two targets). Add one or more container or container/prefix specs — the browse button lists the source. Copy mode is Full or Incremental as above.

App-consistent #

Choose the Windows machine and a workload — Hyper-V virtual machines, SQL Server databases or Active Directory — then Discover on machine to list what is there and tick the VMs or databases you want. Ticking none means all of them, including ones created later. SQL is captured copy-only, so the customer's own log-backup chain is untouched. A Hyper-V VM on Server 2016 or later can be backed up incrementally (only changed blocks travel) once that is switched on for the agent; until then every run is a complete, application-consistent copy of the VM's files.

Step 3 — Destination #

A storage target of the customer's, plus an optional directory within it. Everything the job writes goes under that directory, so one bucket can hold many jobs. Local folders and SMB shares cannot be the destination of a Cloud Agent job — the cloud fleet has no route to a customer's LAN — and the wizard says so rather than letting the job fail on its first run.

Step 4 — Schedule #

Connector jobs run every N hours instead of on a cron (6 by default).

Step 5 — Options #

When a file already exists at the destination #

Replace writes the current file over the stored one; Skip leaves the stored one; Keep Both renames the new copy. Continuous jobs, app-consistent captures and connector syncs always Replace (each writes the current state over the last), and the wizard shows the choice locked with the reason.

Version history #

Keep previous versions keeps the last N copies of every file that is overwritten (3, 5, 10 or a number you choose), optionally for a minimum age as well. Where the destination has native versioning (S3-compatible buckets with versioning enabled) Caryvane uses it; elsewhere it keeps the copies in a sidecar folder beside the data. Versions are what Version history and the drive's context menu show. Off by default because it costs storage.

What to include (Files jobs) #

• Age filter — only files newer than N days, or only files older than N days / not accessed in N days. The older-than modes plus Delete source after upload make a simple archive: cold files are moved out.
• Use VSS (Volume Shadow Copy) — reads open and locked files on Windows through a shadow copy. On by default for the nightly template. This is file-level; for a database or VM use an App-consistent job instead.
• Delete source after upload — a move, not a copy. Each file is deleted only after it is safely at the destination.
• Exclusions — glob patterns (*.tmp, node_modules/, logs/*.log); the template pre-fills cache and temp junk. Exclude hidden / Exclude system switches for Windows attributes.

Notifications and scripts #

Mute notifications for this job overrides the customer's notification settings for one noisy job. Pre-script / Post-script (PowerShell, cmd, bash; with a timeout) run on the machine around a Files job — stop a service, dump a database, then start it again. Not available for jobs the Cloud Agent runs; there is no machine to run them on.

Step 6 — Review #

Every choice on one page, each line linking back to its step. Anything that would fail on the server — a missing customer, a source and destination that are the same target, a schedule with no cron — is shown here in red before you can save.

After it is created #

From the job's row: Run now, Run History (every run with files uploaded/skipped/failed, bytes, duration, the run log, and the list of failed files with the reason for each), Browse backup (connector jobs), Edit, Duplicate, Disable, Delete. A run ends Completed, Warning (finished, but some files were skipped — encrypted with EFS, in use, or blocked by antivirus; the log names each) or Failed. Run the first backup by hand and read its log before trusting the schedule.